PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 

BULLETIN, VOL. XIII, pp. 223-240 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY 



IN THE 



UNITED STATES 



MARCUS BAKER 



Annual Presidential Address, delivered before the Philoso(M[[oai> 
Society ok AVashington April 2, 1898 



WASHINGTON 
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 

April, 1898 




Of^ WA^^«^'' 






A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED 

STATES 

BY 

Marcus Baker 



THE ANNUAL PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESS 

DELIVERED 

April 2, 1898 



Men and women occupied with the small and special de- 
tails of a large and complex work are not well situated for 
understanding the scope of the large work to which they con- 
tribute. The shop girl in Waterbury who spends her days 
and years in cutting threads on tiny screws may have very 
limited knowledge and erroneous opinions about the watch 
industry. The trained arithmetician who spends his months 
and years in adjusting triangulation or verifying computa- 
tions does not thereby acquire valuable opinions as to the 
scope and conduct of a great national survey. In our day 
many, if not all, branches of human knowledge and activity 
are widening. As they widen they are specialized. The 
student of nature, the practitioner of medioine or law, the 
artisan, each is prone to contract the size of his field of ac- 
tivity, and to study more profoundly some small part of the 
large subject. Even the farms grow smaller and are better 
cultivated than formerly. Such subdivision of the field of 
study and activity into special and smaller fields has for 
a century at least progressed steadily, and the world has 
gained thereby. Many have become profoundly learned or 
highly skilled in some small subject. You will recall the 
story of the German professor who near the close of a long 

32— Bull. Phil. Soc, Wash., Vol. 13 (223) 



224 BAKER. 

life devoted to the dative case regretted that he had chosen 
so large a field. "I ought," said he, "to have confined 
myself to the iota subscript." I will not deny — nay, I am 
persuaded that the specialization of which I speak is wise, 
that by it the welfare of the race is promoted. But while 
this is so, it should ever be borne in mind that specialized 
knowledge is not a substitute for general knowledge. It is 
something called for by the increased and increasing sum of 
human knowledge ; but if by it the number of students of 
larger and unspecialized fields is greatly reduced harm may, 
indeed must, result. 

My purpose, however, is not to call attention to possible 
perils from undue specialization, for before this audience that 
is unnecessary. The subject has been discussed and is well 
understood. 

For many years my work has been along geographic lines, 
and this has led me to select as the theme for this annual 
address the Geography of the United States; not its mathematical 
geography, nor its physical geography, nor its political geog- 
raphy, nor its commercial geography, any one of which might 
be treated with more ease than the general subject. And yet 
a consideration of the whole field and a picture of the general 
progress made in the geography of the United States since 
its creation will, it is hoped, prove profitable — more profitable, 
indeed, if well done, than a more minute examination of a 
more limited subject. It is not uncommon when a subject of 
large scope has been chosen to hear the comment, " He has 
chosen a large subject ; " and sometimes we think we see in this 
an implied opinion that the sjDeaker shows either unwisdom 
or audacity in such choice. I will not deny that either or 
both may be true in this case, but will at once invite you to 
follow me in a most general review of a century's progress in 
the diffusion of geographic knowledge in and as to the United 
States. 

It is not to the details or agencies by which our knowledge 
has been acquired that I would draw attention. This has al- 
ready been done many times. In the stout and repulsive black 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 225 

volumes that for years have, from the government printing 
office, been poured out over the country without stint or 
price — in these are set forth with elaborate minuteness the 
geographic work clone by the United States. The particular 
fields investigated by boundary surveys, by the Coast Survey^ 
by the General Land Office, by the Lake Survey, by the 
Pacific Railroad Surveys, by the Wilkes Exploring Expedi- 
tion, by the Rodgers Exploring Expedition, by the so-called 
Hayden, Wheeler, and Powell surveys, by the Northern 
Transcontinental survey, by various State surveys, topo- 
graphic and geologic, and by the U. S. Geological Survey — 
all these are duly recorded and published in scores of for- 
bidding black volumes. These volumes record the increase 
in geographic knowledge, but throw little light on its diffu- 
sion. For this we look to the text-books, to public addresses 
in Congress and out, to newspaper and magazine articles, and 
to public lectures. These reflect the general knowledge of 
the community as to geography. This phase of the subject 
shall be our theme. 

It is now one hundred and nine years since thirteen sov- 
ereign and independent states, loosely bound together in a 
confederation, agreed to form a " more perfect union." By 
a narrow majority and after protracted debate they ac- 
cepted the terms of an instrument which bound them in an 
indissoluble union. In April, 1789 — one hundred and eight 
years ago — Washington was inaugurated. That we may 
clearly note our geographic progress since that event let us 
picture to ourselves in broad outline the geographic environ- 
ment of that time. 

The total area of the original thirteen states was 830,000 
square miles, an area a little larger than Alaska. The popu- 
lation was about 4,000,000, or a little more than that of 
Greater New York today. Of the whole area only about 30 
per cent contained any population, and even within this area 
the people were gathered for the most part in a narrow fringe 
along the Atlantic seaboard. The largest city was New York, 
with a population of 33,000 — i. e., it was about as large as the 



226 BAKER. 

Yonkers or Youngstown of today. Waterbury, Connecticut, 
with a population of 29,000, is a little larger than was Phila- 
delphia in 1790. Boston contained a population of 18,000 ; 
Charleston, South Carolina, 16,000 ; Baltimore, 13,000, and 
Salem, Massachusetts, 8,000. After these only thirteen others, 
all still smaller, find a place in the first census. 

Maine was a province of Massachusetts, with a northeastern 
boundary undefined and awaiting an international boundary 
conference for its determination. Most of its territory then 
was, as some still is, barely explored. To the north, then as 
now, was a British province ; to the west and south, Spanish 
possessions. This phrase Spanish possessions must here be 
taken in a Pickwickian sense, for these regions owned by 
Spain were still almost exclusively possessed by the aborigines. 

Traveling was chiefly done on horseback and by stages. 
The days of railroads and steamboats were in the future. 
Even the system of canals and national highways, so much 
exploited in the early decades of the century, was not yet 
begun. 

Of maps of the region there were several, fairly good for 
their time. None of them, however, were based on surveys. 
The maps of Thomas Jeff'erys, geographer to King George 
during the revolutionary period, are as a whole the best, and 
fairly representative of the geographic knowledge then exist- 
ing. While these maps of Jefferys, as well as others, recorded 
the best geographic information then extant, it does not ap- 
pear that the information they contained was widely diffused. 
General ignorance as to geography must have been great. 
Noah Webster, the lexicographer, writing in 1840, says of 
the teaching in the schools when he was a boy : 

''When I was young, or before the Ee volution, the books used were 
chiefly or wholly Dil worth's spelling books, the Psalter, Testament, and 
Bible. No geography was studied before the publication of Dr. Morse's 
small books on that subject, about the year 1 786 or 1787. * * * Except 
the books above mentioned, no book for reading was used before the 
publication of the Third Part of my Institutes, in 1785. In some of the 
early editions of that book I introduced short notices of the geography 
and history of the United States, and. this led to more enlarged descrip- 
tions of the country." 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 227 

Thus we learn that geography teaching began with a few 
geographic notes inserted in a spelling book published just 
prior to Washington's inauguration. 

Dr. Morse, to whom Webster here refers, was the Rev. Jede- 
diah Morse, minister of the Congregational church in Charles- 
town, Massachusetts. He published in 1789 an octavo vol- 
ume of 534 pages, entitled The American Geography. This 
book was, four years later, greatly enlarged and published in 
two volumes with the title The American Universal Geography. 
A fourth edition, extensively revised, appeared in 1801 or 1802, 
a fifth in 1805, a sixth in 1812, and a seventh in 1819. The 
fifth edition of 1805, and presumably all later ones, was accom- 
panied by a little quarto atlas containing about sixty maps and 
entitled A Neiu and Elegant General Atlas, drawn by Arrow- 
smith and Leivis. 

As a special writer on geography, Morse appears to have 
been the first American in the field. He continued to write 
for many years, and after his death the son published revised 
editions of his father's works. As Morse's geographies, or 
abridgments of them made by himself or others, were exten- 
sively used in the schools, we may now learn from them 
something of the " state of the art," as our patent experts and 
attorneys would say, of geographic teaching in the early years 
of the century. 

It is worth while to note, in passing, the high esteem in 
which the work done by Morse was held. The numerous 
editions called for and sold at home and its translation and 
sale abroad attest its value. Samuel G. Goodrich, who wrote 
so much over the name Peter Parley, referring to his boy- 
hood school days, about 1800 to 1810, in Pidgefield, Con- 
necticut, says : 

*' When I was there two Webster's grammars and one or two D wight's 
geographies were in use. The latter was without maps or illustrations, 
and was in fact little more than an expanded table of contents taken from 
Morse's Universal Geography— the mammoth monument of American 
learning and genius of that age and generation." 

The third edition of Morse's abridgment was published 
in 1791. As to maps it contains only crude diagrams of the 



228 BAKER. 

world, of the continents, and of the United States. For the 
most part, therefore, it is clear that our grandparents got 
vague and crude ideas of geographic situation, extent, and 
relation, since clear views of these are not gained without 
majDS, sometimes indeed not even with them. The points 
emphasized by Morse are the points which were of command- 
ing interest and importance in his day. 

Fertile soil, healthy climate, but especially transportation 
routes, are described in general and in particular, and are 
dwelt upon. The facilities which the rivers and lakes afford 
for commerce impressed our forefathers much more forcibly 
than even today the water routes to the Klondike hnpress 
the imagination of the gold-hunter. 

You will rmoll that on the old maps the Ohio river ap- 
pears as La Belle Riviere — the beautiful river. To the French 
voyageurs La Belle Riviere was more than a mere name. Its 
deep and placid waters, affording an easy and delightful nat- 
ural highway for a journey almost a thousand miles long, 
unbroken by falls or rapids, were to them indeed beautiful. 
Of it Morse says : 

"The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its gentle current is 
unbroken by rocks or rapids except in one place. It is a mile wide at its 
entrance into the Mississippi, and a quarter of a mile wide at Fort Pitt, 
which is 1,188 miles from its mouth." 

This distance, 1,188 miles, has now shrunk to 965 miles. 
As to the Mississippi he says : 

"The principal river in the United States is the Mississippi, which 
forms the western boundary of the United States. It is supposed to be 
3,000 miles long and is navigable to the falls of St. Anthony." 

In the numerous lakes and rivers scattered over the land 
Morse saw a bond of union between the future settlers. He 
points out the ease with which a complete network of water- 
ways might be constructed and its effect. He says : 

" By means of these various streams and collections of water the whole 
country is checkered into islands and peninsuUas. The United States, 
and indeed all parts of North America, seem to have been formed by 
Nature for the most intimate union. For two hundred thousand guinea^ 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 229 

North America might be converted into a cluster of large and fertile 
islands, communicating with each other with ease and little expense, and 
in many instances without the uncertainty or danger of the sea." 

The Western Territory at this time (1790) comprised what is 
now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Min- 
nesota. It was practically without settlers. Morse guesses 
that it contained 6,000 French and English immigrants and 
negroes. As to this region, but more particularly Ohio, In- 
diana, and Illinois, says Morse : 

"It may be affirmed to be the most healthy, the most pleasant, the 
most commodious, and most fertile spot of earth known to the Anglo- 
Americans. The design of Congress and the settlers is that the settle- 
ments shall proceed regularly down the Ohio and northward to Lake 
Erie." 

It will be remembered that at this early date Congress met 
in Philadelphia. The longitudes given by Morse are reck- 
oned from Philadelphia. Where the future capital of the 
United States was to be, no one then knew. The selection 
of the present site was actually made by Congress in 1790. 
Before Morse had knowledge of such selection he indulged 
in this bit of speculation as to the future capital. Speaking 
of the future state of Ohio, then nameless, he says : 

" The center of this state will fall between the Scioto and the Hok- 
hoking. At the mouth of these rivers will probably be the seat of gov- 
ernment for this state ; and, if we may indulge the sublime contemplation 
of beholding the whole territory of the United States settled by an en- 
lightened people, and continued under one extended government ; on the 
river Ohio and not far from this spot will be the seat of empire for the 
whole dominion." 

As to the region west of the Mississippi, it was then Spanish. 
Originally French by discovery and occupation, it had passed 
from France to Spain by cession in 1763. In the light of 
what it now is, a few words from Morse's speculations in 1791 
as to its future throw light on the geography of his time. 
He says : 

"A settlement is commencing, with advantageous prospects, on the 
western side of the Mississippi, opposite the mouth of the Ohio. The 
spot on which the city is to be built is called New Madrid, after the cap- 



280 BAKER. 

ital of Spain. The settlement, which is without the Hmits of the United 
States, in the Spanish dominions, is conducted hy Colonel Morgan under 
the patronage of the Spanish King." 

New Madrid, Morse thought, was to become a great empo- 
rium of trade unless the free navigation of the Mississippi 
should be opened to the United States, and this, he thought, 
would not occur without a rupture with Spain. 

Some had thought that all settlers beyond the Mississippi 
would be lost to the United States. Morse discusses this at 
some length, and concludes with a paragraph which w^e quote 
entire : 

" We cannot but anticipate the period as not far distant when the 
American Empire will comprehend millions of souls west of the Missis- 
sippi. Judging upon probable grounds, the Mississippi was never de- 
signed as the western boundary of the American empire. The God of 
Nature never intended that some of the best parts of his earth should be 
inhabited by the subjects of a monarch 4,000 miles from them. And may 
we not venture to predict that, when the rights of mankind shall be more 
fully known, and the knowledge of them is fast increasing both in Europe 
and America, the power of European potentates will be confined to Europe, 
and their present American dominions become, like the United States, 
free, sovereign, and independent empires." 

These sentiments have ever taken deep root in the United 
States. When President Monroe, more than a quarter of a 
century later, wrote the State paper that has forever linked 
his name with the sentiment, " America for the Americans," 
he did not create or express new or strange doctrines, but 
simply gave expression to an abiding conviction of the 
American people. 

Such in brief is a word picture of the geography of the 
United States at the beginning. Let us now go forward a 
generation, to about 1820, and note the changes. Our second 
and, let it be hoped, last war with Great Britain is over. By 
the first war political independence w^as won, by the second 
commercial freedom. Our ships might now go where and 
when they would, freed from hateful and hated search by 
any foreign power. Freedom from dependence on foreign 
manufactures had taken root and was making vigorous growth. 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 231 

It is difficult to fully realize the burning zeal with which every 
one was imbued to make the United States dependent upon 
nothing but itself. It was not enough to be politically free. 
Freedom was not fully won so long as we were compelled to 
depend upon foreign powers for anything whatsoever. In 
the introduction to his little geography of 1791, Morse voices 
these sentiments. He says : 

"It is to be lamented that this part of education (geography) has 
hitherto been so much neglected in America. Our young men, univer- 
sally, have been much better acquainted with the geography of Europe 
and Asia than with that of their own state and country. The want of 
suitable books on this subject has been the cause, we hope the sole cause, 
of this shameful defect in our education. Till within a few years we have 
seldom pretended to write, and hardly to think for ourselves. We have 
humbly received from Great Britain our laws, our manners, our books, 
and our mode of thinking; and our youth have been educated rather as 
the subjects of the British king than as citizens of a free republic. But 
the scene is now changing. The revolution has been favorable to science, 
particularly to that of the geography of our own country." 

The great lexicographer, Noah Webster, was inspired by 
the same views when preparing his dictionary; and espe- 
cially did that great democrat, Jefferson, strive unceasingly 
to complete the independence of which the political part was 
definitively secured by the peace of 1783. 

He would not have us reckon our longitude from a foreign 
meridian, or depend upon a foreign country for an ephemeris 
or for coast charts. A ccordingly, in 1804, a meridian through 
the Executive Mansion was surveyed and marked on the 
ground as the first meridian of the United States. The name 
Meridian Hill survives in testimony of this. In 1807 the 
Coast Survey was created to accurately chart our coasts for 
purposes of commerce and defense ; and in 1804 the famous 
expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the Pacific ocean expanded 
our political and mental horizon in matters geographic. A 
great system of national highways, both roads and canals, 
was projected and pushed forward. The practical introduc- 
tion of steamboats stimulated progress. Lake Champlain 
was connected with the Hudson by a canal, while work upon 
*' Clinton's ditch," or the Great Western canal, as the Erie 

33— Bull. Phil. Soc, Wash., Vol. 13 



232 BAKER. 

canal was then called, was being pushed forward with great 
energy. The object of this canal, as Morse tells us, was " to 
turn the trade of the western country from Montreal to New 
York." 

In 1791 there were only 89 post-offices in the United States. 
Twenty-five years later, in 1817, there were 39 times as 
many ; 3,459. Each day in the year (1791) the mails were 
carried 10,000 miles by stages and 11,000 on horseback 
and in sulkies. Mail was carried along one continuous 
route from Anson, in the district of Maine, via Wash- 
ington, D. C, to Nashville, Tennessee, 1,448 miles ; an- 
other mail route was from St. Marys, Georgia, via Washing- 
ton, D. C, to Highgate, in Vermont, 1,369 miles. These were 
the longest mail routes in the United States. Postage stamps 
were not yet invented, and the postage on each letter, which 
was limited to a single sheet of paper, was 25 cents. 

The beginning of the third decade, or about 1830, may be 
regarded as marking the decadence of that grand scheme of 
internal communication by canals and national highways 
which had hitherto filled the imaginations of statesmen and 
publicists. The railroad had been born and a revolution had 
begun, the end of which not the wisest could or can foresee. 
To this railroad system were we indebted, and we are still 
indebted, for a stimulus to geographic research, which has 
continued undiminished to our own day. 

The twelfth edition of a school book on geography by 
Daniel Adams appeared at Boston in 1830. This book ap- 
pears to have been revised and brought down to 1827. A 
few extracts from it will give a picture of the geographic 
knowledge then existing. He says : 

" Vessels are from 5 to 30 days on their passage up to New Orleans, 87 
miles, although with a favorable wind they will sometimes descend in 
12 hours. From New Orleans to Natchez, 310 miles, the voyage requires 
from 60 to 80 days. Ships rarely ascend above that place. It is naviga- 
ble for boats carrying about 40 tons and rowed by 18 or 20 men to the 
falls of St. Anthony. From New Orleans to the Illinois the voyage is per- 
formed in about 8 or 10 weeks. Many of these difficulties, however, now 
are happily overcome, and much is gained by the successful introduction 
of steam navigation." 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 233 

The children in our schools today are asked, among other 
things, to set forth the advantages for commerce possessed by 
the Western States. This is the answer to that question which 
Mr. Adams furnished to their grandparents. As to these 
Western States, which comprise all west of the Alleghany 
mountains, he says : 

" The remote situation of this country from the seaboard renders it 
unfavorable to commerce. This inconvenience, however, is in some de- 
gree remedied by its numerous large and navigable rivers, the principal 
of which is the Mississippi, the great outlet of the exports of these States ; 
but such is the difficulty of ascending this river that most of the foreign 
goods imported into this country have been brought from Philadelphia 
and Baltimore ik wagons over the mountains, until the invention of 
steamboats, by which the country now begins to be supplied with foreign 
goods from New Orleans." 

The following passage, also from Adams, throws strong 
light on the knowledge current in 1827 as to the great prai- 
ries of the west. 

" Pilkav^ prairie or plain is a high, level ground in this state (he is 
speaking of Indiana), seven miles long and three broad, of a rich soil, on 
which there was never a tree since the memory of man. Two hundred 
acres of wheat were seen growing here at one time a few years since yield- 
ing fifty bushels on an acre." 

Missouri Territory at this time, so wrote Adams — 

" Extends from the Mississippi on the E. to the Pacific ocean on the 
W., and from the British Possessions on the N. to the Spanish possessions 
on the south. 

In all this great region the only features mentioned by 
Adams are the Mississippi, Missouri, and Columbia rivers, 
the Rocky mountains, and Astoria. St. Louis, with a popu- 
lation of 4,600, was the center of the fur trade. Similarly De- 
troit, in Michigan Territory, with a population of 1,400, was a 
fur-trading station, while western Georgia was still in posses- 
sion of the Indians called Creeks, " the most warlike tribe 
this side the Mississippi." 

" The White mountains," he tells us, " are the highest not only in New 
Hampshire, but in the United States. Mt. Washington, the most elevated 
summit, has been estimated at about 7,000 feet above the level of the sea." 



234 BAKER. 

Finall}^ as to Alaska the golden, from which so much of 
wealth and of disappointment is to come, our author couples 
it with Greenland and dispatches it in this one sentence : 

"There are also Greenland on the northeast (of N. America), be- 
longing to Denmark, and the Kussian settlements on the northwest, both 
of small extent and little consequence." 

These citations serve to indicate the horizon of geographic 
knowledge 70 years ago, a horizon which was steadily widen- 
ing. Stories of wondrously fertile lands wxst of the Alleghe- 
nies found their way to the rocky and sterile farms of the 
east, and a steady stream of migration to better lands, where 
the struggle for existence should be less severe, poured over 
the Alleghenies and onward toward the sunset. In the 
vanguard was the Government surveyor measuring out the 
land and subdividing it for farms. Working hurriedly in 
a wilderness, among native tribes not always friendly, his 
surveys were not, perforce, accurate, nor indeed was it impor- 
tant they should be. They yielded a basis for titles to home- 
steads and for clear and easily understood descriptions. The 
results of these subdi visional surveys constitute substantially 
the only bases for the maps for much the greater part of all 
of our " Great West " to this day. 

Already before 1840 the question of supremacy of canal or 
railroad had been settled. In Peter Parley's geography of 
1840 a tabular exhibit of railroads and of canals in the United 
States shows that there were then 46 canals, with a total 
mileage of about 4,800 miles, and 88 railroads, with a 
total mileage of nearly 7,700 miles. Progress in railroad- 
building demanded surveys and maps. Accordingly these 
were made ; knowledge of geography was increased, and in- 
creased at a rapid pace. Whenever a little known region is 
found to possess wealth or the means of its rapid acquire- 
ment, knowledge of the geography of that region increases 
extraordinarily fast. Witness the increase and diffusion of 
knowledge as to Alaska in the past twelve months. The peace- 
ful expanding of our horizon of geographic knowledge con- 
tinued steadily and uniformly. But crises in human affairs 



A CENTURY OP GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 235 

sometimes hasten progress ; wars, rumors of wars even, some- 
times make possible the seemingly impossible. 

The northern boundary of the United States, from Maine 
to the crest of the Rocky mountains in Montana, as we now 
see it on the maps, was definitely settled in 1842. For more 
than half a century prior to that date this frontier had been 
in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. 
Repeated attempts to settle it had met with repeated failure. 
Boundary disputes, as we know, are ever long-lived and 
bitter. In April of the year 1842 Lord Ashburton arrived in 
Washington with full power to negotiate a treaty for settling 
this old and irritating controversy. Webster was then Secre- 
tary of State in the cabinet of President Harrison. Before 
the year had ended a treaty, now known as the Webster- 
Ashburton treaty, had been drafted, agreed to, signed, ratified, 
and proclaimed as the law of the land. Webster regarded 
this settlement as " the greatest and most important act of his 
eventful life." That the settlement was just may be inferred 
from the fact that it displeased both parties, and both Web- 
ster and Ashburton were criticised at home for sacrificing 
the interests of their respective countries. 

But this treaty line stopped at the crest of the Rocky moun- 
tains, and immediately there arose the Oregon question. 
That question was whether Great Britain or the United States 
owned the territory which now comprises western Montana, 
Idaho, Oregon, AYashington, and British Columbia. Much 
bitterness and angry contention followed before the 49 th 
parallel was, in 1846, finally agreed upon as the boundary. 
The debates in Congress and in Parliament during the years 
1842-1846, and articles in leading journals and reviews, after 
generously discounting their partisan overstatement, clearly 
portray the then prevailing knowledge, or rather, should I not 
say, the prevailing ignorance, as to the whole region west of 
the Mississippi. 

Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, in 1844 in the House of 
Representatives, cited with approval these words spoken by 
Benton, in the Senate, in 1825 : 



236 BAKER. 

"The ridge of the Rocky mountains may be named without offence as 
presenting a convenient natural and everlasting boundary. Along the 
back of this ridge tlie western limits of the Republic should be drawn, 
and the statue of the fiibled god Terminus should be raised upon its 
highest peak, never to be thrown down." 

On January 25, 1843, Senator McDuffie, of South Carolina, 
speaking of the country now embraced in the two Dakotas, 
Nebraska, Kansas, and thence northwestward to Oregon and 
Washington, said : 

" What is the character of this country ? Why, as I understand it, that 
seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky mountains is uninhabitable, 
where rain scarcely ever falls— a barren and sandy soil — mountains totally 
impassable, except in certain parts. Well, now, what are we going to do 
in such a case as that ? How are you going to apply steam ? Have you 
made anything like an estimate of the cost of a railroad running from here 
to the mouth of the Columbia? Why, the wealth of the Indies would be 
insufficient! You would have to tunnel through mountains five or six 
hundred miles in extent. Of what use will this be for agricultural pur- 
poses ? I would not, for that purpose, give a pinch of snuff for the whole 
territory. I wish it was an impassable barrier to secure us against the 
intrusions of others. If there was an embankment of even five feet to be 
removed, I would not consent to expend |5 to remove that embankment 
to enable our population to go there. I thank God for his mercy in 
placing the Rocky mountains there." 

A writer in the Westminster Review, in 1846, thus describes 
the great plains of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma : 

" From the valley of the Mississippi to the Rocky mountains the United 
States territory consists of an arid tract extending south nearly to Texas, 
which has been called the Great American Desert. The caravan of emi- 
grants who undertake the passage take provisions for six months, and 
many of them die of starvation on the way." 

Indeed, the question much debated at the time was, Is 
Oregon worth saving ? Both AVinthrop and Webster were 
of opinion that the government would be endangered by 
a further enlargement of territory. Mr. Berrien declared 
that the region under discussion was a barren and savage 
one, as yet unoccupied, except for hunting, fishing, and trad- 
ing with the natives, while Mr. Archer said the part near 
the coast alone contained land fit for agricultural purposes, 
and there were no harbors which were or could be rendered 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 237 

tolerable. And yet, out of all this hot debate and war talk, 
there emerged in 1846 peace, Oregon, and the forty-ninth 
parallel. And out of all the ominous mutterings in 1898, 
and the fever heat that is now at the danger line, there w^ill 
emerge — I am not a prophet, but let us hope, there will 
emerge — white-winged peace, honorable to Spain and to us, 
justice for all, and freedom for Cuba. 

Three years later came the discovery of gold in California. 
Then California, as now Klondike, set the imaginations of 
men on fire. Long caravans of ox teams in endless succes- 
sion wended their slow way across the plains, the mountains, 
and the deserts to the sunset land of gold. Government sur- 
veys for a railroad promptly followed, and crude and imper- 
fect knowledge as to the region rapidly gave place to better, 
though still defective, knowledge of the Great West. 

Then came war and the need of war maps. All available 
agencies for their production for the use of army and navy 
were drawn upon, and the need of topographic maps for mili- 
tary purposes, hitherto clear to the few, was now made clear 
to the many. 

In the years immediately following the civil war several 
events occurred which gave a fresh impetus to geography. 
The completion of a railroad across the continent had a pro- 
found significance and importance. It was a bond of iron 
which, shortening the time and distance between east and 
west, bound them closer in ties of affection and interest. 
The western pioneer of '49 and '50 could revisit his old 
home and friends in the east, and opportunity was afforded 
to many in the east to get some personal knowlidge of the 
boundless west. 

In 1867 Alaska was purchased. The discussions in Con- 
gress and out preceding and following that purchase were 
spread abroad and taught Alaskan geography to the masses; 
and yet there was little to teach, for but little was known. 
The government, the great agency of geographic research 
in this country, at once began to explore its new purchase, 
to survey, and to map it. This work has with varying vicis- 



238 BAKER. 

3itudes continued to this very year, when the work of explo- 
ration and survey is, under the stimukis of gold discoveries, 
being conducted on a scale never hitherto attempted there- 
It was in that same year, 1867, that Major J. W. Powell made 
his adventurous voyage down the Colorado river and brought 
the world its first clear knowledge of the Grand Canon, great- 
est of all nature's wonders in our land. It was shortly after 
this that from the Hayden Survey came tidings of that region 
of wonders — the Yellowstone Park. 

In the thirteen years immediately following the civil war 
three national surveys were engaged in the west in gather- 
ing information as to the character and extent of the natural 
resources of the western territories — territories for the most 
part then containing few inhabitants except Indians. The 
rise of these surveys was rapid, the results secured interest- 
ing and valuable, and their rivalry and clashing inevitable. 
Many thousands of square miles of territory were roughly 
mapped out and many books and reports, both popular and 
scientific, were produced. 

In 1878 a reorganization was proposed and the National 
Academy of Sciences asked to submit a plan. This it did, 
and submitted it to Congress. The outcome was the present 
U. S. Geological Survey, created in March, 1879. It replaced 
the prior organizations familiarly known as the Hayden, Pow- 
ell, and Wheeler surveys. 

The work laid out for the newly created Geological Survey 
was geological and its field the national domain. What is 
the national domain f Is it restricted to the territories and 
places actually occupied by the United States, or does it em- 
brace every spot where the Stars and Stripes may float ? Con- 
gress after a long debate answered this question and author- 
ized surveys to be made in every part of our whole Union. 
Again, geological investigations cannot be satisfactorily made 
nor geological results satisfactorily exhibited without maps, 
topographic maps — i. e., maps which show the shapes and 
forms as well as positions on the surface. Such maps did 
not exist. A fragment here and there, to be sure, existed — a 



A CENTURY OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES. 239 

fringe of sea and lake coast ; but these constituted only a bare 
beginning. Accordingly, in 1882 authority was given and 
the beginning of the mighty task of making a topographic 
map of the United States was begun. That work has for 
sixteen years progressed without interruption, and today 
we have contour topographical maps covering more than 
600,000 square miles. In almost every state and territory 
in the Union work has been done, while Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and the District of Co- 
lumbia are completely mapped. 

That the prosecution of this work and the distribution of 
the maps has profoundly influenced interest in and knowl- 
edge of geography of the United States goes without saying. 
These maps are in the hands of engineers, of projectors of 
improvements, of teachers, of text-book makers, and of geo- 
graphic students everywhere. The standards of school geog- 
raphies have risen, methods of geographic teaching have 
been changed, and a better understanding of the relations to 
environment produced. 

And thus the first century of progress in geography ends 
with a rate of progress both in research and in teaching never 
surpassed. That which has been already accomplished is 
great, yet it is but a small part of that which remains to be 
done. 



34— Bull. Phil. Soc, Wash., Vol. 13 











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